Sighing, Dave flopped on his bed and stared at the ceiling, his hands behind his head. He wondered if things would change much once Mandy moved out to Wind Valley into the cottage on the other side of the property that she and Dean had been gradually renovating and painting. In reality, he didn’t think so. Perhaps her sunny nature might help lighten the atmosphere in the main house, as well as Dean’s personality—which always seemed to be dark and brooding, like their father. Or maybe the Burrows family would rub off on Mandy. He hoped not.
Glancing outside, he realised the shadows were beginning to lengthen. The sheep would be out grazing now, so he knew he should go and muster the last paddock of ewes that hadn’t been drenched. He could do them first thing in the morning, in the cool.
Pulling himself up, he turned off the air-conditioner and grabbed his helmet, before slamming the door behind him and calling to Jip.
Chapter 3
When Dave pushed open the door, the pub was noisy with roaring laughter and smelled like spilled beer and sweat.
It had only taken him thirty minutes to get the sheep in the yards, with the help of Jip, and he’d decided to reward himself with a beer and a Sunday evening feed at the local pub in Northam. Being only twenty minutes drive away, he thought he could use the company of the customers. He needed a break from Wind Valley Farm.
When he’d called in past the house to tell his mum he wouldn’t be there for dinner, he’d seen his dad’s ute parked outside. While he’d been there, Dave had asked his mum where Sam had been and why he’d missed lunch. She had just raised her shoulders in a shrug. Then he’d emptied two wheelbarrows full of cuttings into the rubbish bins and asked if there was anything more he could do before he left. She’d said no.
He hated seeing his mum slaving away in the house and the garden without any help and seeing her spoken to as if she were dirt, but he felt powerless to change anything.
‘Davo, how goes?’ asked Jack, one of the blokes on his cricket team. ‘Harvest all done?’
‘Yeah, mate. Finished a couple of weeks ago. What about you?’
‘Done and dusted for another year. Good yields. Should help keep the wolf from door. Not like last year. Hope I never see another harvest like that again. Hardly got our seed back.’ He took a long pull of his beer as if he were trying to wash away any memories of the drought which had hit hard, over three long years. Rain clouds had taunted them as they’d scurried over the sky, carried along by the strong, cold wind, but they hadn’t dropped much rain. A few millimetres, every month or so, at best.
Selling stock had been the first thing his father had done—and Dave hadn’t agreed with his decision. Sam had wanted to sell the core breeding ewes, rather than the lambs and wethers. Dave had argued with his father that it would cost too much to buy ewes back in and it would be best to keep them for as long as they could. Sam had ignored Dave’s comments, and the other brothers had gone along with what their father had chosen to do.
Dave handed over a ten dollar note to the bartender and got a beer in return with some change. ‘I hear you. Farming’s easy when you get the rain and the sun at the right time.’
‘And a shit of a profession to be in when it’s not! Are you on the countdown to the big day?’
‘Five days tomorrow. Things are mad. Mum is still snipping away at the garden and I think tomorrow is when all the people helping start turning up—caterers doing all the prep work and such.’
‘Yeah, all the CWA ladies are going there first thing in the morning. Must be carting all the tables and so on out tomorrow. Anyways, Georgie wants to know if Mandy will join the CWA when she gets here. Can you make sure Mandy knows? Need to make her feel welcome, don’t we?’
‘I guess so. Still she’s met a few of us over the past couple of years. She should fit in pretty easily.’ Dave was about to ask if Jack had noticed any signs of worm burden in his sheep when his friend spoke again.
‘Hoping to catch Dean for a beer before he ties the knot. Reckon we should organise a few with the team?’
‘Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.’ He glanced around and saw Adam was sitting in the dining room with Tiffany and her family. Unexpectedly, Dave felt a sense of loneliness envelope him. Life was changing quickly. Dean was about to be married and Adam seemed to be moving more towards his girlfriend’s family. And with the harvest finished and all of the marriage arrangements happening, Dean hadn’t been around much.
The three brothers had been close as kids but, somehow, as they’d got older and drifted in different directions, they’d grown apart. It saddened Dave; he missed the camaraderie he’d had with Dean and Adam. He was also positive that the breakdown in relations between the brothers and their father upset his mum more than she ever let on.
He shook himself out of his reverie. As his grandfather had often said to him, there was no use wallowing in self-pity as no one ever took any notice. He turned back and looked at Jack. ‘We’d better get on with it if we’re going to make this happen in time.’
‘Leave
